Mike Portnoy

The first part of this interview with Mike, I did whilst in New York in April this year, and at the time, much of the album was still in the construction stage. So the second part that follows, is an update I did with him recently, where you will be able to read the latest news on the album’s progress, and also one or two other revelations.....

Part 1 – April ‘96

How has the writing of the new album been going?

Well, it has been going sporadically for various reasons, because of things going on we keep having to come to a quick little hall, then resume, stop and resume. But it’s going great and we have seven songs finished now. Not all finished with vocals and melodies and lyrics, but musically seven are finished, so we are about an hour into the material at this point.

Another long one?

Yeah. Will see. We’ll see how much of it we’ll use, but hopefully will use almost all of it, if not all of it.

Tell me about ‘Raise The Knife’ and its subject matter.

Without getting too much into it, as lyrics should be interpreted by the people that read it. If I start giving my thoughts on it now before people even hear it, or read the lyrics, then they’re already gonna have some preconceived ideas, so I don’t want to do that, but I’ll just say that it’s about the subject of loyalty, and it showing loyalty from several different points of view.

Have you written any other lyrics for the new material?

Nothing that’s been applied. I know everyone has been writing lyrics, and James has a lot of lyrics but nothing has been applied yet. So ‘Raise The Knife’ is the only one that I have on a song, but I have a book’s worth of stuff that I have accumulated, and it’s just a matter of who gets what song.

What are the themes that have emerged generally, lyrically or musically?

Lyrically – I don’t know, I guess we always seem to deal with these lyrics that are just very personal and reflecting where we’re at. It always seems to be the case, and it seems to be continuing with this record. A little bit of everything at this point. Usually the album title an album artwork is a reflection of the lyrics, and they are always the last thing, because we always have to wait until all the lyrics are put together, and we can look at them as a whole. At this stage of the game, it is too early because basically the music is always the first thing, then the lyrical tie in is always the last thing. So we are sort of in the middle right now.

From that the album title usually comes as well?

Yeah, the album title is always the last thing. That’s when every song is written with lyrics, we then sit down with it all and come up with some common words or phrases that tie it altogether.

With James and Derek being involved a lot more with things at the writing stage, do you feel that this is bringing out a slightly different side to the Dream Theater writing?

Absolutely! You’re getting two new perspectives – Derek being a completely new perspective musically, and James just a new perspective because he hadn’t been writing with us in the past. He’s not writing with us musically, because that’s not a chemistry that he is going to step into, but once the music is done, he really has been more involved in the melody side that he has been in the past, because he has actually been singing along with us when we’ve been putting it together. It’s very refreshing, very nice for us to not have to worry so much about the melodies and lyrics because finally a singer is taking that upon himself, and Derek has been a great contribution. And of course, everybody’s main concern is how Derek is going to fit in with the writing, and man it’s just incredible. I think probably the biggest reason is because he’s got 30 years of creative ideas waiting to explode. He’s always been in situations in the past where he wasn’t able to write. He surprised us with the amount of contributions to the music and ideas.

Where you record will probably be dictated by who you use to produce the new album – any favorites?

There’s a list, and you’ve probably already heard the list, but we’ll see. We always talk about Peter Collins, and the top of the wish list, the grandmaster of the wish list is Trevor Horn. Then there is a lot of other different people, so I guess we’re talking in a kind of premature stage...... Have you heard any of the new stuff, has anyone played you the new material?

Not yet, I’m going to listen to it after we have done this.

Right now, at this stage, you really can’t talk about anything, it’s just like the music has to do the talking.

Still on the producing side, would you be interested in producing either yourselves or other artists? Is this an area that you would like to go into down the line?

It interests me. I would love to do it. As far as doing other artists, I would do that in a split second if I had time available. That is something that I’ve always been interested in, even with the band’s demo tapes, the 4-track, and now the ADATs that we do. Generally I like to be very very involved in that, and I’m the one sitting behind the control board working and running it. Even when we’re doing our albums, I’m the one that’s there from start to finish. It’s something that really fascinates me, and something that I’d like to do. As far as the band producing themselves, I think at this stage of the game, there’s various other members of the band that feels that would not be the right move.

The need for that additional objective outside ear to oversee things?

I think we could do it, I personally think that we’re capable of it, and we are creative enough to do it. But some of the other guys think that outside objectivity is really important, so that’s the direction will continue in.

The clinics in Europe – how did they go for you? And as you were playing extracts of the new material – I guess they got a good response?

They went great, at most of the clinics I played along with ‘Raise The Knife’ – not because they were my lyrics, but probably because of all the ones we’ve demoed so far, it is the most progressive and the most challenging musically. So I played along with that, and I also had a track which the working title is ‘Carnival Of Clams’ – but that’s only an instrumental working title. Usually they always have these silly titles which have nothing to do with the final titles. So I was playing along with that at a couple of clinics, which is a more heavy song for the next album. But the whole clinic tour was great, I wish it didn’t disruptive the band’s writing, but it was good because I know the European fans were happy to get a Dream Theater fix for ‘96. It was good because John and I did a couple of clinics together, even though we were mostly separate, the couple we did together were a lot of fun, and we got local bass players to jam with us. It was cool and a different experience for the fans.

You’ve changed your kit again!

Yeah, I’m back with Tama. It’s basically the same setup that I had with the Mapex.

Has it grown once again, and are you in the same studio as the other guys with it?

Because that kit was so big, there really isn’t any room for anything else. So I’m back with Tama playing the StarClassic drums. They have a whole separate line of StarClassic, it’s like the top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art drum that is out right now, a new series, and I am just happy to be back with them.

What is the plan now for finalizing things and going into the studio?

That’s what we’re hoping. The writing process, even though we’ve had these breaks, and clinic tours and personal tragedies, but when we are writing, it is going so incredibly fast. So we’re going to continue and write a couple more. Then we’re ready to go.

You know I’ve got to mention the Rush tribute album. How on earth could you pick which songs to cover? It must have been an impossible task to draw up the shortlist was so much stuff to choose from.

It was. Actually they put that whole creative responsibility in my lap. It was great because I always have this vision of a Rush tribute album, so it was good because I was able to come up with my dream tribute album. If there was any band that I wanted to be able to have a say in, it was definitely Rush. It was tough, but I wanted to come up with the more obscure ones, ones that the diehard fans would be interested in hearing. Stuff mainly from the ‘Hemispheres’ era, and I wanted to stay away from the ones that are a little more typical and ones that Rush have done in recent times like ‘Xanadu’ and ‘2112’ – as much as they’re classics, everyone still gets to hear those. It was a lot of fun, and I’m sure all Rush fans will be completely blown away.

I must admit, I think the quality of the material is generally excellent. It would have been interesting to have heard Rush record some of those old songs with the technology of today! As we relaunch the Dream Theater international fan club, is there anything you’d like to say to the members?

As always the support is great, and I think the words like fan club and fanzines and online Internet, and stuff like that, has been taken to a whole new level, fans involvement with bands, and especially with this band in particular, has been taken to a whole new level! In the past, fan clubs are generally run by one person, and now there’s a whole new perception of how fans can be involved with bands. In the past, our fans have really taken if to another level, and I think with you getting involved with the fan club and tying it in with the Internet, it really is an opportunity to let the fans continue to be involved, and we love the support because the Dream Theater fans are the best and most supportive and the most fanatical in the world, and we love it!

To finish off – and this may seem like a strange question – but would you like to see the band make it to megastar status? The stadiums? The media hype, etc.? Obviously the big bucks are a help – do you think it would change things for you personally too much?

Yeah, probably. It would have to change you. I don’t think we want to sell-out or cash-in, it’s not like we want to be these superstars. I think basically we want our music to be heard by as many people as possible, and that’s the goal I think. The money would be great for sure. We’re all secure right now, and even right now I think we’ve achieved our goals and dreams to so many points already. The fact that we can continue to make records and have that outlet, and some of the individual goals that we’ve accomplished like the Modern Drummer awards I keep winning – to me when I was a kid, that was my dream. So I’ve already accomplished some of these things, and to meet those little goals etc. – that’s what makes the whole thing exciting and amazing. To be able to record an album with Billy Sheehan and to do a Rush tribute, that was amazing. Just all the other drummers I’ve met and hung out with, and all the different musicians we’ve jammed with over the past year, it’s like the little things that make the whole thing so incredible. We’ll keep going if only to let our music be heard by as many people as possible.

Part 2

Firstly, let us start by just updating things a little bit on the new material. We now have a list of eight which are complete with lyrics and vocals lay down. Can you go through them by title, length, and who contributed the lyrics?

‘Raise The Knife’ – (11:15) (lyrics by MP) the working title was Showdown, ‘Lines In The Sand’ – (13:40) (JP), working title Cats Tail, ‘Take Away My Pain’ – (6:35) (JP), ‘Anna Lee’ – (6:35) (JL), ‘Where Are You Now’ – (7:15) (JP), ‘You Or Me’ – (5:55) (JP), ‘Burning My Soul’ – (9:00) (MP) working title Carnival Of Clams, ‘The Way It Used To Be’ – (8:00) (JL), ‘Just Let Me Breathe’ – (5:15) (MP)

Nothing there by John M?

Not yet. But one of the songs we have on deck at the moment he has lyrics for.

And as we spoke about before, they run to well over an hour in length. Presumably, with more material than can fit on a CD, you’ll have to either streamline things when recording, or have some leftovers for use elsewhere.

Well, first of all they aren’t necessarily the last tracks! We’re going to keep writing until we get into the studio, so we may be done or we may write another four or five for all we know. But as of now, because of the track listing you have is about 70 minutes, and a couple of other ones we are developing, we are basically talking between 90 and 120 minutes worth of music! It’s yet to be seen what’s gonna happen. To be honest, I’m gonna fight for a double album; that’s what I would like to see happen. I don’t know how the band as a whole feels about that; we’ll fight that battle when we arrive at it. But it’s something that I really feel strongly about, because we have so much material, and I think we’re at the point in our career where it would make sense. A good point in our career for a creative statement like that. If that doesn’t happen for whatever reason, then we’ll have to use as much as we can, which will be roughly 75 minutes or so, hold onto the rest of the material for B-sides or whatever. But I can’t picture having to choose and not put some of the stuff on the album, because we love it all, we’re so satisfied with every single song, it would be really hard to actually leave any of it out.

Do you feel it’s a bit risky to put out a double CD?

Sure. But at this stage I think it would be a good move to make an artistic statement, I really do. Any of my favorite bands, whether it be Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, the Beatles, etc. – they all had double albums, and I think we’re at a real creative point in our career where we’re churning out a million ideas, and why not? We’re not a commercial band, that if we put anything more than a 45 minute album out, it’s going to kill our career. Basically our career is based upon something very different than what is out there, so this would just be another step in that direction. I mean this is just me speaking out loud, but....... You want the big scoop? Here’s the big scoop: I think we have an album title!

Already? What’s going on?

It’s something that was just kicking around and everyone seems to really like it, so it’s very possible it’ll be called ...................... (Censored! – For now! – Ed.)

Now, do you want me to reveal this now, in print, or do you want me to keep it under wraps for now, just in case it turns out not to be the case?

Um, yeah, I suppose so, but that’s the possible working title at the moment.

On to the recording of the new album. After the tragic death of Kevin Gilbert, have you come up with any new favorites as producer?

Basically, we’ve been waiting to have a well-balanced demo. The first songs that you heard were one side of us, and we wanted to wait until we have demoed the progressive songs, the heavy songs, and the poppy songs, so it was a well-balanced tape for people to hear. So as far as pursuing the producer, it’s been on hold until we felt we had all of the balance on tape, for people to really hear all the different sides of what the music had to offer. With this new batch we just finished demoing this week, now we can actually go full throttle with pursuing the producer. And again there’s a lot of people on the list, and I don’t know who is a reality and who is not, but just a list of names that have just flown by in the air, going back a few months, Peter Collins, Trevor Horn, Daniel Lanoire, those type of people, and then I’ve got into Kevin Gilbert and Bill Bottrell, who used to work with Kevin, then recently Steve Lillywhite (Dave Matthews Band/U2), Trevor Rabin. I just turned the guys onto the new I Mother Earth album, which was produced by Paul Northfield. So we have a wish list that runs from anywhere from 5 to 10 people. There are certain ones that we like more than others, but now that we have the well-balanced breakfast demos, we feel we can now start sending them out to people and get the ball rolling at this stage.

Any chance of you keeping a studio diary whilst recording? It would be good for the fans to read.

I’m thinking of doing that actually. If I do it, I’ll give it to you and all the fanzines. It’s very time-consuming, but it’s a possibility. I would even backtrack and try to document the whole writing process as well.

Can we, very briefly, mention this ‘Derek and James’ out of DT bullshit that surfaced in Germany’s ‘Rock Hard’ magazine. How are why do you think crap like this comes about? Is it just to fill space and sell copies, or are they taken in by someone starting rumors for whatever reason?

I don’t know, but we hear about stupid rumors every day, especially on the Internet, and a good 50% of it is pure bullshit. I don’t have the slightest clue where it comes from, or how it starts, but you just have to take it with a grain of salt. I guess when there is a lull in the band’s career, as of right now, the fans aren’t hearing anything from us, sort of in limbo between records and tours, and we’re tucked away in our basement just writing now, and when you’re going six months, nine months, a year long period where nobody’s hearing anything, they have to start making up stuff.

So what is the plan to finalize the writing, getting into the studio, and ultimately getting the product out?

Now that we’ve finished the latest batch of demos, we have most of the album in demo form, now we can really get the ball rolling, get it to the record company, get their feedback, then get it out to the producers, and hopefully we can get the green light and get into the studio hopefully within the next month or two. As with anything in this industry, it usually takes longer than expected, and this is no exception.

Do you plan on playing any shows before you go into record, say at Xmas or anything?

No plans yet, but of course anything is possible. But right now our priority is getting into the studio and recording the record, but if we get into the studio as hope, and we finish it around October, it’s likely that it won’t be out until around February next year, so anything is possible. We’re itching now to play it, but we have to get it recorded first.

With the new material, it will become another tough job deciding what to play and what to leave out.

Especially now. We have over an hour and a half’s material, and even if it ends up as a single album and stuff ends up on B-sides, we will probably end up playing some of it live. I don’t know how the hell we’ll be able to choose setlists, it’ll become impossible just because the material is so long.

Obviously you’ll want to include as much of the new stuff as possible. So are we talking about the three hour set now, or would it be that the set would change a fair bit from show to show week to week, to cover as much as possible?

I think the two options are: a) to either have a very long set, maybe with an intermission, or b) to have alternating sets, which is what we had at the Christmas shows last year. The problem is when the songs are so long. Obviously every band that has multiple albums out there, has a million songs to choose from, but when they are five-minute songs, you easily pick and choose and get 20 different songs in. But when the songs are over 10 minutes each, that means the set list can only really contain 10 to 15 songs. Then when you’re having that few songs, it’s inevitably gonna leave a lot of them out.

It’s tough playing longs shows in clubs as well. We did a two and a half hour show in Japan, and that’s a lot easier when you’re in a theater and you can sit, it’s more like a show and more comfortable and the audience can actually last that long. But when you’re in a hot sweaty club and people are moshing and getting drunk at the bar, two and a half hours is a long time to expect someone to have an attention span. So it depends on the environment.

What ever became of the Japanese only ‘Tears’ bonus CD track? Did anyone ever get a copy? Did you ever get a copy?

I got a copy! It happened, there were 1000 copies and I guess they’ve went out randomly to people in the raffle. I usually get a whole batch of them, but only got two this time. We still have a bunch of mixed and mastered tracks from Ronnie Scott’s, so I am hoping that they will surface sometime in the future.

I would like to start getting some unique items done for the fan club members in the near future, say photos not seen elsewhere, or something for Christmas etc......

I would too. I’ll take that a step further, maybe if we could mass-produce either a cassette or a CD especially for a Christmas thing for the fan club. Like ‘Oh Holy Night’ or something! I’ll bring it up with (manager) Rob, and you do it too. The Beatles used to do it every year for their fan club and they would record messages and songs and stuff. I think it’s a great idea. We have the technology, the stuff we’re recording the demos on sounds really good. So bring it up and I will too!

Will do. I think that would be a really great unique gifts for fans, something to treasure, good idea. Perhaps we can start a campaign to the management into organizing something? (Are you listening people? Get campaigning! – Ed.) Thanks again for your time.